Lehigh Sports Forum

DE from Buffalo NY

A ball hawk DB from So. Car today.

Staff busy today. 2 OL offers
A G from St.Joe's Prep
A T from St.Louis Mo

An approximate status on offers
Total. 150

Theoretically alive ascof today. 97
No way to know how many staff has kept alive.

QB. 7
RB. 3
OL. 12
WR. 18
TE. 3
DL. 17
LB. 9
DB. 18
Ath. 10
No doubt there will be a continued influx of offers. Staff on the road for the next couple of weeks.

If you cannot recruit your backyard, there is very little value trying to recruit in others backyard. LEHIGH needs to focus on a 100 mile radius of Bethlehem and put out 400 offers. The yield and taking a player through admissions might be 5%.

The restrictions we have on recruiting require us to cast a wide net. The water is too shallow. We'd love tho have a dozen guys from PA--and half of them from the Lehigh Valley area, but too many cannot get admitted. The expense to be able to recruit nationally is a challenge. The reason for the Football Partnership to raise money to assist with the all the costs of the coaches associated with recruiting.

If Lehigh football cannot find 20 football student athletes of 2 star quality within 100 miles, it has bigger problem than a recruiting budget. 100 miles captures parts of Long Island, almost all of NJ, West to Harrisburg and northern Delaware. There are plenty of target athletes.

It is a fallacy that to be Patriot League Champs you need to recruit nationally.

The vast majority of our recruits come as always from Pa and NJ. The pool of talent just in Pa and NJ is large. Academically qualified prospects a good bit smaller but still ample. Why dont we get more? Simple . Intense competition for those players. This is not 10-15 yrs ago. Now we have an expanded CAA, Monmouth, an amped up Ivy League and the NEC which didnt even exist back then. Not to forget the academies and the MAC.
HFO take a moment and our roster . Note where our best players come from. You'll see a lot of States in the 2 deep. The Northeast has well over 1500 HS programs . Why go elsewhere? To get better talent. Over the past 5 years we have shifted our out of area focus from Florida to Georgia and the Carolinas. The wider your net, the better chance you have at more qualified D1 talent.
When I came to Lehigh in the early 60s most of our roster was Pa with a lot of players from the LV. The talent pool in the LV is much smaller now. Populations change over time. Lehigh has changed also from a regional university to more of a national footprint.
You opine that we should focus just on the 100 mile circle from Bethlehem for players. Paper it with 400 offers and get 5%. Problem tho is there aren't 400 academically qualified D1 recruits in that circle.

Back to this year.
A 3* dual threat QB from California.

The final push for ESD in 2 weeks started today.
Upon a home visit LU offered a Connecticut WR/DB